Biography
Raven Cuellar, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor and licensed clinical psychologist in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at UNM. Dr. Cuellar is Co-Director of the ACTION Childhood Trauma Program, an outpatient program dedicated to providing trauma-focused assessment and psychotherapy, as well as training, outreach and consultation to service providers, organizations and diverse communities throughout New Mexico. Dr. Cuellar also provides psychotherapy and well-being supports to learners, faculty, and staff in the UNM School of Medicine through the Office of Professional Well-being. She delivers training and workforce development to a wide range of behavioral health and healthcare providers on well-being and resilience, recognizing and responding to secondary traumatic stress and burnout, promoting trauma-informed systems of care, and on various types of psychotherapy and clinical issues. She draws upon her fine arts background to inform the creative and expressive methods of healing and recovery that she utilizes in psychotherapy, training and supervision. Dr. Cuellar is an active member of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) and has Co-Chaired the NCTSN Secondary Traumatic Stress Collaborative Group for the last 10 years. She is a certified trainer in the CE-CERT framework for professional sustainment.
Personal Statement
Dr. Cuellar is an active member of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) and is the current Co-Chair of the NCTSN Secondary Traumatic Stress Collaborative Group. She has co-developed a large set of resources on secondary traumatic stress, well-being and resilience for helping professionals, which can be accessed online at: https://www.nctsn.org/trauma-informed-care/secondary-traumatic-stress. Her leadership roles within the NCTSN also include: the Peer Support Service planning team which hosts monthly peer support groups and activities; the Terrorism and Disaster Network; and the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression (SOGIE) Collaborative Group. Dr. Cuellar also serves on the advisory board for the Secondary Traumatic Stress Innovations and Solutions Center (STS-ISC). She is actively engaged with the Healthcare Professional Wellbeing Academic Consortium (PWAC).
Areas of Specialty
Trauma and Interpersonal Victimization: PTSD, complex developmental trauma, dissociation, traumatic grief, factors mitigating risk for re-victimization, identity development in traumatized sexual and gender minority youth, impact of historical trauma and experiences with systematic oppression/ marginalization
Psychotherapy: Attachment, Self-regulation and Competency (ARC); Trauma Affect Regulation: Guide for Education and Therapy (TARGET); Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT); somatic and archetypal approaches to healing; family systems conflicts and attachment difficulties; fostering relational safety and empowerment in individuals with histories of trauma and adversity; identity and self-development in LGBTQ and gender diverse individuals; coping with identity/ role conflicts and distress in medical training
Provider Wellness and Resilience: Recognizing and addressing burnout, empathic strain, secondary traumatic stress (STS), moral distress and institutional betrayal; fostering wellness, resilience and reflective capacity at individual and organizational levels; workforce development in rural, low-resourced service systems
Education and Training: supervision, teaching, and training on trauma and stress; cultural adaptation of EBTs; therapeutic alliance with challenging caregivers; use of self in psychotherapy; STS-informed supervision and training; building trauma-informed systems of care; implementation science; problem-based learning
Gender
Female